Hersh in the NYer on Iran

One of the most important articles of the week has been Seymour Hersh's latest piece "The Iran Plans" in the latest issue of the New Yorker.

In it, Hersh describes some disturbing attitudes in the Bush Administration about how to deal with Iran and its ever-more-likely nuclear capabilities. Iran's position as an Islamic Republic increasingly dominated by Shia extremists determined to acquire nuclear weapons obviously makes it one of the most immediate concerns for the western world at the moment. The issue is not if we need to deal with the situation in Iran, but how, and Hersh reveals that many senior figures in the Bush Adminstration are willing to take a very heavy-handed approach. Hersh writes:

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change.

Now regime change is not a bad thing when it comes to Iran, as it wouldn't be with North Korea, Syria, or a number of other threatening nations. But it seems that the method favoured for regime change by the Bush Administration is one that comes in the form of a military assault. A former defense offical told Hersh that:

the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."

Many people seem to think that the exact opposite would occur, that an attack by the United States would galvanise support for regime and further marginalise those democratic elements that are attempting to change Iran peacefully from within. Regime change, however, seems to be the focus, not the elimination of nuclear facilities:

"This is much more than a nuclear issue," one high-ranking diplomat told [Hersh] in Vienna. "That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years."

One of the ironies is that the United States, in an effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, seems to be willing to use nuclear weapons themselves. Hersh writes:

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

However the option of using tactical nuclear weapons is one that has more support amongst the civilian elements of the Pentagon. A Pentagon adviser on the war on terror told Hersh:

"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries.... This goes to high levels." The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. "The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks," the adviser said. "And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen."

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. "They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation," he said.

Apparently there are already covert actions taking place in Iran. The troops infilitrating Iran are reconnoitering possible targets and making contact with anti-regime groups. Writes Hersh:

If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get "eyes on the ground"—quoting a line from "Othello," he said, "Give me the ocular proof." The broader aim, the consultant said, is to "encourage ethnic tensions" and undermine the regime.
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"'Force protection' is the new buzzword," the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. "The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran," he said. "We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want."

One can understand the anxiety of many in the Pentagon and the Bush Administration in general. Iran has become the most pressing threat to peace in the world. Unlike the North Koreans, who are seemingly willing to remain quietly on the Penisula, Iran has a history of offensive behaviour, both in its own right, and through intermediaries. Robert Baer's See No Evil contains a gripping account of his investigations into the Iranian connection to various terrorist activities throughout the Middle East, and he spoke to Hersh for this article:

Robert Baer, who was a C.I.A. officer in the Middle East and elsewhere for two decades, told me that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government "are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites. If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv and you believe they’ve got nukes and missiles—you’ve got to take them out. These guys are nuts, and there’s no reason to back off."

Everyone Hersh spoke to seems to realise that something must be done to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear bomb, and that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror told Hersh:

"God may smile on us, but I don’t think so. The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen."

The biggest obstacle to immediate action, as the interview between an Islamic reporter and Joshua Muravchik discussed in a previous blog entry showed, is that the Iranians have been very effective in hiding, disguising and lying their nuclear program. Robert Gallucci, "a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown", told Hersh:

"If they had a covert nuclear program and we could prove it, and we could not stop it by negotiation, diplomacy, or the threat of sanctions, I’d be in favor of taking it out. But if you do it"—bomb Iran—"without being able to show there’s a secret program, you’re in trouble."

The storm over absent WMD caches in Iraq will be nothing compared to the repurcussions of a massive (and it would have to be massive) bombing campaign against Iran that is unsupprtable with publicly available evidence, not just domestically within the US and its allies, but in the Middle East region and Iran itself. It will stir up anti-American feelings, radicalise otherwise moderate Muslims and encourage Iran to accelerate its programs. Hersh says:

The I.A.E.A.’s best estimate is that the Iranians are five years away from building a nuclear bomb. "But, if the United States does anything militarily, they will make the development of a bomb a matter of Iranian national pride," the [European] diplomat said. "The whole issue is America’s risk assessment of Iran’s future intentions, and they don’t trust the regime. Iran is a menace to American policy."

Hersh reports that the United States has been quite blunt with the I.A.E.A. about not getting in the way of US action (military or otherwise) with Iran:

[Robert] Joseph’s [the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control] heavy-handedness was unnecessary, the diplomat said, since the I.A.E.A. already had been inclined to take a hard stand against Iran. "All of the inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think the Iranian leadership are nutcases—one hundred per cent totally certified nuts," the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders "want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side"—in Washington. "At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians."

The opinion in Europe, as the high ranking European diplomat Hersh spoke to implies:

If the diplomatic process doesn’t work, there is no military ‘solution.’ There may be a military option, but the impact could be catastrophic."
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Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. "The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically," the European intelligence official told me. "He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse." An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the U.S. "Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to U.S. movies and books, and they love it," he said. "If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run."

The Europeans are pushing hard for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, for they have a much more pessimistic vision of what would happen if the United States attacked Iran, including an increase in international terrorism:

Iran could also initiate a wave of terror attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, with the help of Hezbollah. On April 2nd, the Washington Post reported that the planning to counter such attacks “is consuming a lot of time” at U.S. intelligence agencies. "The best terror network in the world has remained neutral in the terror war for the past several years," the Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said of Hezbollah. "This will mobilize them and put us up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon. If we move against Iran, Hezbollah will not sit on the sidelines. Unless the Israelis take them out, they will mobilize against us." (When I asked the government consultant about that possibility, he said that, if Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, "Israel and the new Lebanese government will finish them off.")

The adviser went on, "If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle." The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, "the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck."

"If you attack," the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, "Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians."

The diplomat went on, "There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking." He added, "The window of opportunity is now."

One hopes that cooler heads than those in the Pentagon prevail.